What is flow?

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his book, Flow:

The state in which ppl are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that ppl will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

How does it feel to be in flow?

Quotes from the book:

A friend of mine used to be a Dom. Back when she lived in LA, she used to tie up wealthy men, strip them, whip them, and make them do whatever she wanted.

Get in the room! Take your pants off!

She was paid really well to rip them of their dignity, and the big bucks came in during rare occasions in which she was requested to “kidnap” wealthy men, tie them up and throw them into a car, and then drop them off in a desert. She and her team would then punish them, and then release them back into reality.. most often a world in which they ran a department or an organization.

But why would they enjoy that? I asked.

We have a label for food with empty calories that can satisfy our hunger without nourishing our bodies. It’s called junk food.

We don’t really have a label for sensory inputs with mindless information that do little to nourish our minds. I’ll call them junk info streams.

Relatively speaking, I seldom use social media. But when I’m on it, I binge.

Deep depression causes a form of blindness.. blindness to your worth, how much you’re loved, and all the great possibilities yet to be explored.

Sometimes, fresh air, sunshine, and a phone call can go a long way.. how I wish you had called me, friend.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

A casual mention of my self-guided meditation practice always generates a lot of questions from my friends. What exactly do you do? Do you feel any benefits? How do you keep yourself from thinking about different things? After sharing my experience with a few friends, I decided to write about it here.

I picked up an old journal that I kept while studying + working abroad in London. Wow, looking back on a day for the first time in six years is such a treat. Here’s my journal entry from 4/7/09, which was exactly 6 years ago:

The birds have vanished into the sky,
And now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and I,
Until only the mountain remains.

-Li Po

I booed a performer recently.

Sophie, who was sitting next to me, initiated the booing, and I chimed in. Soon, more and more people started booing, and the singer had to leave the stage. The interesting thing is that she wasn’t at all bad. The problem was that she wasn’t impressive.

The things I need
The things I want
The things I have
The things I hoard
The things I forget
The things I cherish
The things I try
The things I achieve
The things I hide
The things I forgive